Re: No Gnus doesn't like the obsolete spam syntax

[Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
> On Tue, 09 Aug 2005, rra@stanford.edu wrote:

>> It took me a little bit to get the syntax right, since for some reason I
>> read the manual suggestion and thought it said to replace

>>     gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-bogofilter

>> with

>>     ('(spam spam-use-bogofilter))

>> literally.  That just silently fails with no error message, apparently
>> due to having one too many layers of parens.

> Yeah...  I wasn't sure about changing to the new style of configuration
> for exactly this reason - backwards compatibility.  I think the pain is
> worth it, though, as the new format is much better IMO.

Yeah, I agree that the new format is better.

> Was the manual misleading in any way?  I'll be glad to fix it.

The only thing that was mildly misleading was this part:

     _WARNING_

     Instead of the obsolete
     `gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-bogofilter', it is recommended
     that you use `'(spam spam-use-bogofilter)'.  Everything will work
     the same way, we promise.

I *think* that leading ' isn't actually desirable, although I'm not
positive at this point.  It looks like my main issue may have already been
fixed, though, since I think at one point there was another level of
parens.

Also, the manual entry there implies that the old syntax will still work,
and it didn't appear to for me.

> Of course, don't forget that Gnus has three ways to set group variables,
> through gnus-parameters, individual global variables, and group/topic
> parameters...  It's insane IMHO.  I would prefer to pick one
> (group/topic parameters are best I think) and provide conversion
> functions from the others to it.  But anyhow :)

I do most everything through a combination of gnus-parameters and
individual global variables, largely because most of my rules apply to
whole classes of groups and editing properties on each of hundreds of
groups is pretty tedious.  I use all three, but the group parameters are
used for special cases and overrides.

(Topic parameters aren't useful as a grouping mechanism for these settings
for me since I use topics to organize groups along a completely different
axis.)

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>